The Lime Street offices had altered but little. They seemed—as Peter, booted and spurred, clinked through the doorway—a shade gloomier, a shade dustier. A tumble-haired office-girl occupied Parkins’ reception-box. No George—pensioned six months since—pottered about the cigar-racks. The piles of boxes had shrunk to mere remnants of their cedar selves. But otherwise the place was unchanged: looked the same, smelt the same as the first day Peter joined his father in the city.

Only Simpson, sitting in the dark back-room, had become an old man! He seemed to have shrunk: lines streaked his face, white hairs his beard. At sight of him, Peter’s anger evaporated. “Poor old Tom!” he thought, “poor old Tom!”

“It was good of you to come up at once.” The old man looked at the soldier, drew a little comfort from his obvious strength. “This has been my fault, right from the start. You were always against giving the fellow credit. I was talking to my missis about it last night after your wire came—and she thinks—I think—as it’s all my fault—that I ought to stand the whole loss....”

Peter turned away to hide his feelings; made great play of hanging up cap and riding-cane. The offer touched him keenly. It was fine—damn fine—the offer of a white man. But....

“Don’t be such an ass, Tom. I’m just as responsible as you are.” The face above the khaki collar showed no trace of emotion.

Simpson protested; was cut short with a curt, “Forget it, Tom. I wouldn’t let you stand more than your share if you were worth a million. All I came up for was to see if I could be of any use.”

“There’s nothing much to be done, Peter. The man’s gone; the cigars are gone; the money’s gone.”

“Can’t we bring an action in the Dutch courts?”

“He’ll be over the border by now; selling the stuff in Germany. It’ll be worth a small fortune over there. Perhaps it serves me right for going on dealing with Beckmanns. Probably they put him up to it. There have been some ugly rumours about the Beckmann firm lately. I didn’t want to worry you with them. But people say young Albert gave a dinner-party to celebrate the sinking of the Lusitania. I wrote to them about it. Of course, they denied it. Here”—he pulled a document from the basket on his desk; handed it to Peter.

The document, a statement sworn before the British Consul in Havana, contradicted the rumour, “that either SeÑor Albert Beckmann and/or any member of the Cuban firm of Beckmann y Compania had ever adopted a policy hostile to Great Britain and her Allies, and specifically that they had never celebrated in any way the sinking of the Lusitania....”

“It reads like a lie,” said Peter.

“It is a lie,” said Simpson.

“And what are we going to do about it?”

“About Hagenburg?”

“No. About Beckmanns.” Peter’s voice grew steely. “We must cut ’em out, Tom. Not another case. Do you agree?”

The older man hesitated a moment. “Supposing they ship their goods to some one else.”

“Let ’em, Tom. Let ’em. When I come back after this show’s over, it won’t be to buy goods from any dirty Hun—Cuban or otherwise. You’re with me? Right. Then let’s get down to business. How much has this bastard done us in the eye for?”

“About nine thousand, five hundred.”

“Phew!” Peter whistled. “Let’s get out the private ledger and see exactly how we stand.”

For half-an-hour, they pored over the cold figures.

“It means,” said Peter, summing them up, “that we’re worth about fourteen thousand pounds a-piece. Lucky you didn’t have a Nirvana of your own, Tom. What? Question now is: Can we run this business on a capital of twenty-eight thousand?”

“I think so. We’ve got five thou. on deposit; and the Bank will lend us the rest. Goods are selling almost as soon as they arrive, too. That’ll help.”

“We shall have to cut our drawings down, though. At least I shall. You always were economical....”

They settled, after some discussion, on £750 a year each, the firm to pay and debit Peter’s account with his Life Assurance Policies; and Peter, with a final: “Now for God’s sake, don’t worry, Tom,” went back to Aldershot....

“Did you get your business settled all right, dear?” asked Patricia, meeting him in the dusk.

“Quite all right, old thing.” He climbed aboard; and she swung the car round the big station Square. “I wanted to talk to Simpson about your allowance while I was away,” went on the man.

She recognized half truth from the tone of his voice. “Oh, the kids and I won’t want much,” she said, switching gear-lever into top....

That night, for the only time Patricia could remember, she woke to hear her husband murmuring vaguely in his sleep. ... Her father could have told her that it was the sub-conscious mind—wastepaper-basket of the brain—striving to eject its suppressed emotions.